Don't be afraid
by devotedtodreams
Summary: Noah has been resurrected, but he's having very bad dreams. Fortunately, he isn't alone... Kaiba brothers fluff


Here's another oneshot I wrote a while ago... starring the Kaiba brothers (my favorite characters, I like all three of 'em!)

This contains merely brotherly love, not incest or anything! And I guess it's kinda fluffy... hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Yu-Gi-Oh! - a lucky Japanese guy called Kazuki Takahashi does...

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"Gee, Noah, you don't look so good… Is everything alright?"

"I just slept bad, Mokuba."

"Eh?! But you seem to sleep bad very often, it's the third time this week!"

_'The fourth, actually, but that's beside the point.'_ "Don't worry about it. Didn't you say you wanted to take me to the game arcade?"

Mokuba's worried expression faded away, and cheerfully he said: "Yeah, that's right! C'mon, we shouldn't lose too much time!"

Noah put on his usual smile as he allowed his stepbrother to drag him out the door and into town. It would be too cruel to bother the sweet youngster with his worries…

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Mokuba, Noah, go to bed now."

"Aw, Seto, just a little longer!"

"Absolutely not. You have school tomorrow, so I don't want to hear any protests from you."

Mokuba pouted, but then something unexpected happened: Noah started to protest as well. Ever since he had been restored, he had never debated against the brunet, so he caught them both by surprise.

"Please, Seto! Just ten more minutes!"

Seto frowned and crossed his arms. "I don't think so. Believe it or not, but I've heard of the strategy to get 'ten more minutes', which become thirty minutes and then a whole hour, even… So my answer still is no. Go to bed, both of you."

Mokuba nodded in defeat and turned to go, but Noah didn't give up.

"Please! I beg you!"

"Noah!" Mokuba whispered, scolding, "You shouldn't argue with Seto!"

"I don't **wanna** go to bed!" Noah told him, and Mokuba was taken aback by the desperation he heard in the other's voice.

"I don't know what's wrong with you, Noah, but I won't change my mind, even if **you** don't have to go to school for another week. Now go to bed before I get angry," Seto said sternly.

The boy paled, but knew that objection was pointless. "If it must be so…" he muttered nervously before turning around and following Mokuba upstairs.

Seto watched them go, musing about Noah's behavior. Something wasn't right, otherwise their stepbrother wouldn't have made such a fuss…

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x (A/N: I don't remember what the hell had come over me when I wrote this dream... sorry if it sucks...)

_He felt life seeping from him. Like sand, it seemed to trickle out of his pores, slowly making his body shut down. His limbs felt like they weighed a ton each, and he dropped to his knees. His breathing became more ragged with every breath he took as his heart fought desperately to keep his lungs working and his blood flowing._

_Weakened, he rose again and staggered on. He needed help, and fast…_

_Somewhere, a raven crowed as if in mocking laughter. The sound echoed oddly in his ears, and it sounded as if the bird was a million miles away. He no longer had enough power to call out to anyone or anything, it would be over soon…_

_Suddenly, a roar could be heard, and he tore his dulling eyes from the floor to see a dragon loom over him. It was black, but not a Red Eyes Black Dragon – it was a dragon that merely consisted of black bones. Old pieces of skin hung like rags from those bones, and especially the monstrous claws had numerous cracks in them. A figure stood on the bony spine of the beast, a cloaked figure that held a gleaming scythe. No eyes could be seen; only a faint rattling sound was audible with every breath the creature took. _

_He dropped to his knees for good, all strength gone from his legs. His breathing became even more fitful, and he shook all over from the effort to stay awake. It was such a tempting thought: to just fall asleep and give in to the warm comfort an unknown voice promised him with a whisper._

_"Say goodnight… don't be afraid…"_

_"No… I can't… why me?"_

_The hooded figure pointed a white, bony finger at him and croaked: "You."_

_"No…"_

_A light emanated from the dragon and its rider, and suddenly his dying body was engulfed in a flurry of memories. Few were happy; images of the childhood he had enjoyed, yet been robbed of… others were sad, like the horrible accident he barely remembered… the betrayal of his father… years of loneliness with no possibility to experience joy or pain; only the empty feeling of being alone, dead to the world… and then his brothers. The battle that was fuelled by his jealousy and despair… the crime of making them conspire against each other… saving them… and then blackness until he had been resurrected once more, only now in a world where he could feel everything he had missed in the meaningless, all-happy world he had been trapped in…_

_"Don't… I don't… wanna die… Please…!"_

_Death reached out for him, its breathing sounding like that of a predatory animal about to sink its teeth into its prey. He couldn't escape. There was no more feeling in his arms or legs. But to think that this really was the end…_

_"Do I… deserve this…?!"_

_A shrill scream pierced the darkness that had surrounded him by now as Death bore upon him, the deadly scythe raised high above its hooded head, ready to strike and rob him for good of the life he had_ _craved to reach for so long…_

"I don't wanna die!!"

With a blood-curdling scream, Noah shot up in his bed, his hands clawed into his blankets as if clinging to a lifeline. His blue eyes were widened so much that he would declare the sight painful if he would regard himself in a mirror. His heart was pounding so quickly that his chest ached, his breathing was laborious and it felt like he was drenched in sweat.

Frightened, he looked around. There was darkness around him like in the dream, but there was neither death nor a dragon in his room. But there was loneliness, and although he was already a teenager, he suddenly was afraid of the dark again. His intimidated mind hallucinated that the monster was lurking in a corner, waiting to devour him, to make him die anyway.

Suddenly, the door opened, and before he even saw who was there, Noah screamed again and hid under the blankets, not wasting a single thought on how childish he must appear to be. He trembled like a leaf in a storm, waiting for death to come get him as he lay huddled in fear…

"Noah! What's wrong? Why are you screaming?" a voice sounded out.

The boy's eyes snapped open with realization. He knew that voice… that deep voice… the voice of the eldest Kaiba brother.

"S-Seto?" he whimpered.

He felt how a weight settled itself on his bed's edge. A hand grabbed the blanket and gently pulled it back, revealing his shaking form upon which a very dim light from the corridor shone. Still a bit distrustful, Noah opened one eye just a crack wide and peeked at whoever was with him. He hadn't been deceived. It was Seto.

"Kid, what's wrong? You're trembling as if you've been electrified."

"A… nightmare…" Noah whispered barely audibly.

"A nightmare?" Seto repeated. When his brother still didn't calm down, he gently laid a hand on the youngster's shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know!" Noah cried.

Seto was about to comment on that when his sibling clung to him as if for dear life, the pale face buried against his chest, cheeks damp with tears and shivers running through his body. The tall brunet patted his back a bit awkwardly.

"Easy now… don't be afraid…"

Noah squeaked with fear and huddled against Seto even more.

"Don't say that! Don't say that!"

"Why?" Seto asked, puzzled.

"My dream… it said that too…"

"It'd be better for you if you'd tell me what your dream was about," Seto said softly as his long, slender fingers started to soothingly pet Noah's hair.

"I dreamed about death."

Seto froze for a moment. That sounded so wrong, so horrible… people should not be dreaming about death, especially not children! And since this was his brother, he didn't hesitate in showing concern.

"Death, Noah?! But… why?"

"I don't know. I've been having dreams about that for a week now… they're never quite the same, except that I'm about to die in every one of them…" the boy replied fearfully.

Seto thought about that for a while. Indeed; like Mokuba, he had noticed that their stepbrother had not been looking too "good" in the past few days. It was the perfect explanation: a severe lack of sleep that was caused by nightmares. And Seto's smart mind came to a conclusion why the youngster was having those dreams in the first place.

"You have an immense fear of losing your life," he murmured, "This is living your dream… and you cherish it so much that you dream of what you fear most right now."

"I guess you're right. I've waited so long for getting this life – and it's much better than I thought, but who says I deserve this? What if my dreams are an omen? What if I will die soon – again?! What if –?"

He didn't get any further, for Seto drew back and laid a finger on his brother's lips to silence him. He read every ounce of fear in the blue eyes that resembled his own so strongly and was slightly dismayed at what he saw. He was actually surprised that Noah wasn't more restless than he already was. One thing was for sure: his brother needed comfort, and that was where his role began.

"Noah, please listen carefully to me," he said, his voice automatically acquiring a particularly deep and soothing tone, "You needn't be ashamed of your fears; everyone gets scared every now and then. But you shouldn't keep them to yourself, especially when they concern such a serious matter as dreaming of death. You can come to me or Mokuba anytime – we're your brothers and will always be here for you. And as long as we're here, you don't have to be afraid."

"But what if I'll die tomorrow? Or in a week? Or a month?" Noah whispered, his eyes wider still.

Seto shook his head. "Don't think like that, it's not good for you. Don't you worry – I'll look out for you. I'd never let anything happen to either you or Mokuba, remember that."

Noah sniffed and hugged his brother tightly. "I love you both so much, I can't imagine losing you!" he whined.

"We're not going anywhere. We're right here." Now Seto even bowed his head and lightly embedded a kiss in Noah's hair. "We love you too, Noah," he whispered.

They stayed like that for a while, embracing each other in a silent promise, before a sleepy voice said from the doorway:

"What's wrong? …Big brother? Noah?"

Seto looked up and smiled warmly. "Mokuba… Noah had a bad nightmare, so I went to see how he was doing."

"A nightmare…?" the other boy wondered and ambled into the room, yawning. He crawled up on the bed beside his other brothers and looked sleepily bewildered at his stepbrother. "What about?"

"My fear of losing you. My fear of dying," Noah told him.

Mokuba looked appalled. "Dying, losing us?! You won't lose us, brother. We're a family and will always be together. Forever and ever." Then he hugged Noah, who now found himself trapped in the middle of two embraces. But in no other situation would he have felt as safe as he did just then. No wonder he had felt so lonely in his virtual world…!

"You should get some rest now," Seto muttered, addressing both other brothers at the same time.

"So I'll be alone again?"

One look into the aqua-haired kid's eyes told Seto how much the younger one feared that outlook, and he smiled. "Mokuba, would you mind spending the remainder of the night with Noah?"

"Not at all! It'll be alright, brother!" Mokuba answered before prying his stepbrother out of Seto's arms and gently forcing him to lay down. Seto stood watch over them and waited until the raven-haired boy had lain down as well before covering them both with the blanket. He thought it was quite sweet how they hugged underneath it with Noah snuggled up intently against Mokuba's chest.

"Sleep well, you two," the brunet said before bending down and kissing them both softly.

"You too, big brother. Goodnight," Mokuba yawned.

"Thank you, Seto. Thank you for comforting me," Noah mumbled.

"No problem." He watched them both a second longer, then quietly left the room, closing the door silently behind him.

In bed, Mokuba had already gone back to sleep. Noah rested in his arms, thinking about his dreams again. He hoped they would leave him alone now. The way his brothers treated him, he deserved the life he had gotten, so there was no reason to fear that he was not worthy of it. He blinked, and ever so dimly, he saw Mokuba's relaxed, sleeping face. Noah hoped that he could be at peace like that for now too. He closed his eyes, smiling happily. Whenever he'd be afraid again, he thought, he would tell himself this:

As long as his brothers were there, he didn't need to be afraid.

Ever.

**END**

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